1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for automatic management of vacation rental properties. More particularly, the invention is directed to systems and methods for providing a website that automates the rental process for property owners and prospective renters.
2. Description of the Background Art
Web-based vacation rental services provide a convenient platform for vacation/home owners to list their properties. However, these sites, e.g. vrbo.com or the like, typically require owners to manually handle transactions with renters and potential renters. For example, a typical transaction requires a potential renter to contact the owner via contact information available on the website, send/charge some form of payment with the owner, wherein the owner then manually updates the availability calendar on the website. This above process is cumbersome and time consuming for both the renter, who often must verify that the calendar is up to date because the process often leads to inaccurate availability listings, and the owner, who is subjected to numerous correspondence and phone calls from inquiries that may or may not be legitimate or serious.
In addition, while users can search for properties fitting within certain criteria, e.g. rental rate, current rental services do not correlate this information with respect to calendar dates. Because rental rates are often a function of timing (e.g. season, holidays, weekends, etc.), user searches often pull up properties that may be out of the user's price range for a desired period of time.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a web-based platform that automates the rental process between property owners and prospective renters to streamline the listing and rental process. Another object is a rental web interface that allows users to search attributes regarding properties with respect to a given date range. At least some of these objectives will be met in the following description